Friday 2/22 = RMA day

[barnabas1969]

To be fair, the DMA-2100's lock up on me. Not as much as the Echo, but more than I like. My Xbox 360 even locked up on me last week. So the other extenders aren't perfect either. But the Echo certainly doesn't pass the WAF yet. Only the Xbox does that.

Interesting. I've been running four extenders (three HP and one Linksys) for more than two years now. Never a single lockup while watching live/recorded TV. I've had problems with other content (H.264, or high bitrate MPEG2). But the Echo locks up on plain old MPEG2 recorded/live TV.

[Sammy2]

Ooooo.... I have another question for you, Sammy. Do you own any other brands of extender? Ever used them as an extender for Media Center?

Nope. But I know when something doesn't work well. Like I said my echo was on for hours on end for three days straight without an issue with Live and/or Recorded TV and even some less demanding mkv's not causing an issue at all. I wonder also if it was an issue with being forced to disconnect with my nightly HTPC reboot too.

[barnabas1969]

Ooooo.... I have another question for you, Sammy. Do you own any other brands of extender? Ever used them as an extender for Media Center?

Nope. But I know when something doesn't work well. Like I said my echo was on for hours on end for three days straight without an issue with Live and/or Recorded TV and even some less demanding mkv's not causing an issue at all. I wonder also if it was an issue with being forced to disconnect with my nightly HTPC reboot too.

So, what you're saying is that you have nothing to compare the Echo to. I can understand why you're amazed at your first extender. But maybe you should try a different brand so you can make a valid comparison. Many of us who are complaining about the Echo have something to compare it to. It doesn't even perform as well as the old extenders that are not even supported anymore.

[thorhtpc]

To be fair, the DMA-2100's lock up on me. Not as much as the Echo, but more than I like. My Xbox 360 even locked up on me last week. So the other extenders aren't perfect either. But the Echo certainly doesn't pass the WAF yet. Only the Xbox does that.

Interesting. I've been running four extenders (three HP and one Linksys) for more than two years now. Never a single lockup while watching live/recorded TV. I've had problems with other content (H.264, or high bitrate MPEG2). But the Echo locks up on plain old MPEG2 recorded/live TV.

I only use my extenders for live/recorded TV. I've checked my network and there is nothing wrong with it (I have a smart switch that lets me test the cable runs and I can log network errors). My HTPC is only used for WMC and is a minimal install and I have never had problems with it. So I don't know were the problem lies.

The Xbox is definitely the most stable. It has only locked up on me 3 or 4 times in the last couple of years. When I used the DMA-2100 in a high viewing area (I use it on the treadmill now), it would lock up on me at least once a month, if not more.

I think there might be different versions of the DMA-2100. Some people say that theirs goes into standby mode and can be powered on quickly. Mine only powers off and then takes a minute to wake up. So maybe I have a hardware version that is less stable. Who knows.

[barnabas1969]

I only have one Linksys extender. It's a DMA-2200. It doesn't have a standby mode either. It's in my step-daughter's bedroom. She watches kids' movies that we've recorded on it for an hour or two each night as she falls asleep. I've never had it lock up.

[staknhalo]

My DMA 2100 has locked up before. Not common though. But it occurs.

[Sammy2]

Ooooo.... I have another question for you, Sammy. Do you own any other brands of extender? Ever used them as an extender for Media Center?

Nope. But I know when something doesn't work well. Like I said my echo was on for hours on end for three days straight without an issue with Live and/or Recorded TV and even some less demanding mkv's not causing an issue at all. I wonder also if it was an issue with being forced to disconnect with my nightly HTPC reboot too.

So, what you're saying is that you have nothing to compare the Echo to. I can understand why you're amazed at your first extender. But maybe you should try a different brand so you can make a valid comparison. Many of us who are complaining about the Echo have something to compare it to. It doesn't even perform as well as the old extenders that are not even supported anymore.

I am not amazed with it except for the size. But I could give a flying about an extender that is no longer in development that doesn't support my mkv's either. The echo works quite well for me and cost me a whole lot less than the Mini ITX I had planned to build. I am patient and know this will be a great product. Others have no patience at all.

[thorhtpc]

I only have one Linksys extender. It's a DMA-2200. It doesn't have a standby mode either. It's in my step-daughter's bedroom. She watches kids' movies that we've recorded on it for an hour or two each night as she falls asleep. I've never had it lock up.

I had 2 DMA-2100's and one DMA-2200. All of them had lock ups. I replaced 2 of them with Xboxes. I only use the remaining DMA-2100 for less than an hour on the treadmill and it's been pretty stable there. Again, I only watch content that I have recorded with WMC.

I guess it just proves that all of us have different experiences.

[RealCodeGuy]

I think Ceton is "smarter" than some of us give them credit for. They have set the bar so low that a lot of you think they walk on water when they make the slightest improvement. Imagine if they ever add some of these big items they have been hinting at...

Imagine if they ever make the thing run for more than a couple of hours without rebooting or locking up! Wow... then they will be the gods of CE manufacturers.

My Echos only locked up when I was trying to use them with a HD Prime. Since I have two Ceton cards now I haven't had an Echo lock up a single time. I can play them continuously all day without a lockup.

[kingwr]

My DMA2100s used to lock from time to time. Then we went through the whole debacle if the Linksys update server going offline. I setup the DMA2100s to have a static IP with a DNS server of 127.0.0.1 and they haven't locked up since. Cold boot startup is 15 to 20 seconds faster too! Other things occurred within the same timeframe (fresh install of Windows 7 on SSD) but I think the static IP was a major benefit to stability.

[Embiggens]

My Echos only locked up when I was trying to use them with a HD Prime. Since I have two Ceton cards now I haven't had an Echo lock up a single time. I can play them continuously all day without a lockup.

There must be something to this. I wonder how many people that are having stability problems are using network tuners or some version of networked tuners. Maybe the occasional dropped packet is not handled by the Echo? My networking knowledge is pretty limited but just a thought. In any case I have an infinitv4 and my echo is pretty stable.

[ajhieb]

I've had numerous lockups (both with Live TV and playing from my media library) and I have 2 Ceton InfiniTV-4s

[Embiggens]

Right, well if networking is the issue as some have suggested there will be people w/o network tuners that still have issues. I would probably be more interested in whether someone with an hdhr had a troublefree experience.

Sent from my PI39100 using Board Express

[foxwood]

There must be something to this. I wonder how many people that are having stability problems are using network tuners or some version of networked tuners. Maybe the occasional dropped packet is not handled by the Echo? My networking knowledge is pretty limited but just a thought. In any case I have an infinitv4 and my echo is pretty stable.

The Echo never talks to the tuner - all streams come from the PC, whether the Tuner is an InfiniTV or a HDHR, so it's not immediately obvious why a HDHR should cause any more trouble than an InfiniTV.

[warpster]

Well I have network tuners and my experience has not been good. last night after getting the latest firmware my machine locked up/rebooted 6 times the rest of the night.
Twice as I was watching TV it went to the connecting screen.
3 times attempting to launch 2 previously recorded shows.
One of the times it came up with Network Error so I ran their diagnostics (Media Center) which came back and told me my network was great...go figure.
1 time after it rebooted it hung at opening Media Center and I ended up having to pull the plug.
This is really unacceptable for a product this old, if it wasn't for the possibility of android I wouldn't even own this POS.

[staknhalo]

Well I have network tuners and my experience has not been good. last night after getting the latest firmware my machine locked up/rebooted 6 times the rest of the night.
Twice as I was watching TV it went to the connecting screen.
3 times attempting to launch 2 previously recorded shows.
One of the times it came up with Network Error so I ran their diagnostics (Media Center) which came back and told me my network was great...go figure.
1 time after it rebooted it hung at opening Media Center and I ended up having to pull the plug.
This is really unacceptable for a product this old, if it wasn't for the possibility of android I wouldn't even own this POS.

You previously said you were going to return it. Your fault for not doing so.

[Embiggens]

Yeah that's what I thought foxwood, but aren't there overall more 'legit' points for signal corruption to occur with a network tuner? Anyway I'm in over my head so ill quit with this.

Sent from my PI39100 using Board Express

[foxwood]

Yeah that's what I thought foxwood, but aren't there overall more 'legit' points for signal corruption to occur with a network tuner?

The PC is handling more traffic, but in a switched network the Echo itself shouldn't be seeing any of the Tuner<-->PC traffic. If there was "bad" data between the Tuner and the PC, the PC should fix it before streaming it to the Echo.

In any case, we've heard just as many reports of problems with recorded TV as Live TV.

I guesss the question is whether anyone has a recorded TV clip that will consistently cause the Echo to crash?

[Crash2009]

I don't usually leave my Echo's on while I am away, but I thought I would leave one on today, just for a test. Echo 192...71 played the HD Weather Channel without rebooting, from 5 am to 4 pm. I will try a protected channel tomorrow (Cinemax MAXHDP 276 ?), and an SD channel Friday. My tuner is an Infini4 pciE. Network Tuners is not installed.

[warpster]

Yea I know I did, I was getting frustrated at the lack of updates and was going to send it back and then they came out with the State of the Echo update and I reconsidered. I really want this to work but the progress is really slow. Then I got the update last night and after the issues I'm second guessing my decision...oh well it's only $159, I've thrown more than that away in my life if it ends up not getting any better...but I believe it will given enough time.